Mrs May’s plan is not leaving the EU, but staying in for many more months, and buying the most expensive talks in history with more than Ā£39bn of our money.
So the alternative is easy to explain and define. It is to leave in March 2019 in accordance with the EU Withdrawal Act and in accordance with the wishes of Leave voters in the referendum.
December 8, 2018
Again I must correct this.
According to the latest poll from the Economist, 28% of the people want no deal.
It isn’t the will of the British people. I wish it was, then there would be some hope of this situation ending.
Reply No DEal is the most popular outcome amongst Leave voters, and I think b eats all the other options being run.
December 8, 2018
Unfortunately the decision cannot just be made by leave voters. I think we have to find an option which has the majority of the public behind it. My only real desire is to see the British people united again. Going with an option which is supported by 28% of the public doesn’t feel like it.
December 8, 2018
Of course the decision on how we leave has to be taken by leave voters.
The remainers voted to remain so there is no point in asking them.
It would be like asking the opposition to implement the government’s manifesto – which in fact is what is happening with the remainer, Mrs. May, as PM in charge of negotiations and hence why the negotiations with the EU are such a disaster.
December 8, 2018
Of all the drivel on this website, this post beats the lot.
December 9, 2018
You don’t need to read this great website if it offends your senses… and your comments are not of any importance
December 9, 2018
Simon Coleman:
Original Richard made a sensible contrast; not drivel.
However, a solution that delivers Brexit properly, & is acceptable to Remain voters, is superior to one which some 48% of our nation may dislike.
An early example of successful compromise was a clash between 2 sisters who both wanted the only available orange. On realising that one needed the orange as a juice drink & the other needed its peel & pith for cooking, the solutionist provided them both with what they wanted, fully.
We don’t want a Withdrawal Agreement, a new PM nor a 2nd Referendum. We NEED a Solutionist.
December 8, 2018
If you ask…do you prefer a good deal to no a deal what answer would you really expect.
Silly poll
Silly conclusion.
December 8, 2018
Please
Don’t attempt to put yourself in the political centre by calling yourself ‘Average’ Voter.
What you’re saying is that we should Remain. There’s no other way of putting it.
December 9, 2018
I am categorically not saying remain. We voted leave. We must leave in some form or another.
I just really want to see a situation where I’m not being pilloried for wanting to see the British people united again.
I think forcing Remain on the British people will lead to a huge backlash. I think forcing No Deal will lead to a huge backlash. I wish I knew what the answer was. I don’t know.
December 9, 2018
The British people have rarely been united.
Voting and political opinions are divided between two very different main political parties.
December 9, 2018
Average
The answer is incredibly simple
1) Follow the wish of the majority and leave totally
2) Then and only then attempt to negotiate a deal with the EU
3) Once our government is in control THEY can choose who to let into the country
4) Our government can choose the trade tariffs we impose or not
5) Once we’ve had a chance to see how well being outside the EU works we are then in a position to make new decisions
If as remainers predict ( wrongly) its a disaster we can always apply to rejoin . However if we dont leave now we can never leave
December 8, 2018
Leave on WTO terms is the only option that honours the referendum result if the EU don’t want a free trade agreement. That is the option that the majority supported.
December 8, 2018
JR, this is what we all voted for. We hoped for a trade deal. May has failed to achieve one therefore it will be negotiated as an independent self governing sovereign nation. Not one with a gun to its head under May’s servitude plan to remain.
The servitude plan was never the deal pledged or talked about by May.
Bill Cash stated his committee would investigate Brexit. I hope this recommends a criminal investigation and impeachment for May
December 8, 2018
Yes we voted to leave. If a good deal was available we would take it. Otherwise WTO terms. The electorate are fully aware of this but from the outset hard line remainers have tried to undermine the vote inventing all sorts of bogus caveats.
Getting a clean Brexit past a Remain parliament will be the difficulty. They will pounce on any opportunity to thwart it.
December 9, 2018
And anyway – Brexit isn’t about trade alone. This is just being used to obfuscate our actually escaping the EU’s clutches completely. It’s got a lot of tentacles wrapped around us, and they’re not all to do with trade.
(By the way, isn’t there something about impeachment being declared ”obsolete” on 6 June 2016? There’s a coincidence.)
December 8, 2018
That might unite the country!
December 8, 2018
Indeed it is time to deal with May, Olly and their cohort’s!
December 8, 2018
What also needs investigation is the roll played by the BoE, much of the civil service, all the Ollie Robins types and above all the appallingly biased (and wrong) BBC, yet again 5 to 1 pro remain on Any Questions. Clearly ignoring all requirements to be remotely impartial.
Johnathon Dimbleby seems even to have fallen for the 95% of scientists believe in …..drivel on climate alarmism (much loved by daft art graduates employed by the BBC) even attacking Tim Martin over it. He need to talk to some sensible and honest physicists (ones who are not lying to gain government research funding) Richard Linzden types. Anyone who thinks you can predict the climate in 100 years time when there are millions of unknown and unknowable variables is a total fraud or an idiot. Perhaps when these experts get it consistently right for next day, week or month we might let them move on!
āItās Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Futureā
Niels Bohr
December 8, 2018
As indeed are people who forecast UK GDP in ten years time based on Mays appalling deal or no deal. Did these government āexpertsā assume a Corbyn Government and for how many years in these absurd āscenariosā – that is one of the main risks (and with what sort of majority). There are many parallels between climate alarmism and Brexit alarmist.
The same sorts of people seem to be fooled by this alarmism too. Nearly all who work at the BBC for a start, it seems to be required of almost all from of screen employees.
December 9, 2018
Sorry, front of screen.
December 8, 2018
Now it is out in the open. On Thursday Mrs May goes to Brussels and will return with an extension offer. This will be put to the Remainer Parliament by Statutory Instrument, and both Houses will be invited to vote it through.
If they do the can will continue bouncing down the road and we will not leave.
If she attempts this swindle the gloves will be off. I hope the letters will pour in to Sir Graham Brady, that Brexit MPs resign the whip, that they support a Labour no confidence motion, that Premier, government and Parliament topple, that we all take our chances at an election in which millions of enraged Conservative voters withhold their support, and that, in the mayhem, March 29 comes and goes with the deadline unscathed.
Fiat Brexitia ruat caelum. Let Brexit be done, though the heavens fall.
December 8, 2018
But we were assured that this was a final offer?
December 9, 2018
eeyore
“Fiat Brexitia ruat caelum. Let Brexit be done, though the heavens fall.”
A modern version of the Charge of the Light Brigade:
Bold, adventurous and everyone gets killed?
December 9, 2018
Here we see the latest high point in remainer hysteria.
We all “get killed” if we leave the EU
December 9, 2018
Edward2
Is that the best you can do?
December 9, 2018
No I have much more up my sleeve ready to counter your extremist remainer nonsense.
December 8, 2018
Were we to leave next March to trade under WTO rules, as I hope we do, it will concentrate EU minds and if we can get through the initial panic it will be remarkable how soon the EU comes to London looking for a Free Trade agreement.
Meanwhile we can spend our Ā£39B on cushioning the blow and invest the rest in preparing to make our way in the world as an independent country.
December 8, 2018
28% for WTO global trading deal is a solid base after Project-Fear-on-Steroids.
How many more when you explain WTO, PlanA+, FTAs with DIT’s 21 priority countries is our best route to also securing Canada+++ with EU?
Then explain a zero-for-zero No Deal Plus: http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/30/mrs-may-faces-a-big-defeat/#comment-977380
Few realise the EU Internal Market (SM)ās associated fall in GDP growth rates:
ā¢ Before EEC 25 years (1948-1972) : 3.3% ave GDP growth p.a.
ā¢ Before Single Market 25 years (1968-1992) : 2.5% ave GDP growth p.a.
ā¢ Since Single Market 25 years (1993-2017) : 2.2% ave GDP growth p.a.
https://facts4eu.org/news_feb_2018.shtml#sgl http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/29/futile-project-fear-figures/ (UK GDP data begins in 1948.)
Add forecasts with credible assumptions http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/11/28/will-the-treasury-tell-us-the-cost-of-belonging-to-the-eu-that-is-fact-not-fiction/#comment-976877 (& scroll down)
December 8, 2018
Alternatively: “DeltaPoll research found that if a second referendum were held, the public would back āNo Dealā over āRemainā by 52-48%. And thatās achieved in the absence of a leave campaign, with the public being subjected to a constant torrent of un-combatted Remain campaigning over the last two years.” https://order-order.com/2018/11/30/second-referendum-poll-no-deal-beats-remain/
December 8, 2018
So you want to set policy based on an opinion poll in the Economist rather than on a 2016 Peopleās Vote ?
December 8, 2018
Considering the tidal wave of propaganda from the establishment and MSM 28% is an impressive figure.
December 8, 2018
Perfect
Referendum result approved and honoured as pledged at the time it was set.
Shame this solution was not implemented two and a half years ago, we could then have cleared up our WTO status with published tariffs set and organised, and business would have had built in 2 year transition period which would end at on 30th March 2019.
Everyone would know what the programme would be, in advance, and we would have avoided the total and utter chaos, and complete humiliation and embarrassment of our Country in front of the World for the last couple of years.
Any Party offering this and simpler and lower taxation rates would sweep into power at the next election.
December 8, 2018
May’s servitude plan creates uncertainty to business for years, also two systems one for N. Ireland one for the rest of the UK. What authority does May or her government have to give away part of our nation to be ruled by others? None.
December 8, 2018
Why is it so difficult for the political elite to grasp that we want to leave and have voted accordingly.
Looking back at the referendum it would appear to me that the only reason we were given a vote in the first place is because the political body as a whole realised that over 4 decades they had all committed High Treason by giving away our sovereignty without our permission. As all cowards do rather than admit their mistake they asked us to make a choice of in or out of the EU thus legitimising their treachery. If we had voted to stay they would have been off the hook because however things panned out further down the road there would come a point where even the thickest plank would realise that our politicians had sold the country out. Unfortunately we voted the wrong way and May is the political elites backstop fighting a rear-guard action against brexit and is prepared to win at any cost even if it means as the current deal does effective serfdom status in the EU
December 8, 2018
Indeed that and the fact Cameron foolishly though he would win it. He did not even prepare for a Brexit outcome and then just abondonned ship. He should be charged with gross negligence of duty. A captain of a mere ship or an army officer surely would have been.
December 9, 2018
Yep !
December 8, 2018
Dear John–Is there any way to determine when a deal becomes a hard deal or a border a hard bother? Re the latter am I the only one who cannot grasp why the Irish border is hard–after all how can that be when all we are talking about is trade?
December 8, 2018
Indeed and to remove May and Hammond and the others fools & traitors in government who seem to think their job is to propagate project fear, deter inward investment, damage the economy and generally run down the UK and push through May’s appalling (for the UK) deal to force us into endless servitude and become a vassal state .
Then the next project is to really cut taxes, cut energy prices, cut red tape, reduce the size of the largely parasitic sector. generate more and better jobs, encourage inward investment and get the economy going properly.
All this while avoiding the (even more dire than May/Hammond) appalling prospect of Corbyn/Mc Donnall/SNP.
Current odds suggest it is about 50/50% that Labour will be the largest party after the next election. If May remains in charge or get her appalling deal it is almost certain.
December 8, 2018
Hammond will turn people against him and his sort. They need to be hounded out of office.
December 8, 2018
Indeed Hammond endlessly pushes a hugely damaging, tax to death, pension pot and landlord/tenant mugging, endless waste, expensive greencrap, plus a huge fiscal complexity policy. He even retains Mark Carney who has behaved outrageously. He has given us project fear, and thus hugely damaged investment confidence for the UK and he gives us the highest taxes for 40 years combined with fairly dire public services. Indeed should be hounded from office at the least.
December 8, 2018
Hear, hear! Bring it on!
December 8, 2018
Even before the referendum, and much more since then, dishonest Remoaners, including those in the government, have worked away to undermine the idea that we could leave the EU without any special treaty for continuation of the present two-way trade.
Not without any deal at all, mind, but just without any special or preferential trade deal; and no doubt that would be a less than optimal outcome economically, but with a much smaller deficiency than they claim. Just as ardent supporters of the EU have always vastly exaggerated the overall impact of membership of the EU and its Single Market, so too they exaggerate the economic impact of leaving and defaulting to WTO terms.
We have had the potential advantage of negotiating with a man who previously reported that the creation of the EU Single Market had added a mere 2% to the collective GDP of the EU member states – probably about half that average for us – and yet Theresa May has chosen not make any use of that advantage, as with all the other factors which could have operated to our benefit she has deliberately thrown it away.
And once again I repeat that the German government has a much less pessimistic view of how the UK economy would fare if we left and just defaulted to WTO terms, relying on the existing WTO treaties rather than trying to negotiate a new special trade treaty:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/12/02/how-do-i-represent-my-constituents-on-the-issue-our-exit-from-the-eu/#comment-977963
“Theresa May keeps claiming that her ādealā is the only one on the table, but if you take a look on the storage shelf under the table youāll find a folder of WTO treaties … And when the German government commissioned a study on how much it would cost each EU country if the UK just defaulted to those existing WTO treaties then the answer for the UK came out as a long term loss equivalent to 1.7% of GDP.”
Not 6% or 9% or whatever figure the liars in our government invent, but less than 2%.
December 8, 2018
Iāve been following this site for a while. Iām not really a leaver or remainer, but it seems to me weāre caught in a dreadful paradox.
52% of the British people want to leave the E.U
The latest poll of the alternatives (according to The Economist) is:
45% remain in the E.U
28% want No deal
22% want the governmentās deal
Meaning remain is the most popular alternative on offer.
It seems to me that we betray the will of the British people if we donāt leave, but equally we betray the will of the British people if we donāt opt to remain.
Iām not sure there is a good answer to this. It seems like a paradox. If push came to shove Iād say go with the governmentās deal because itās the least bad alternative and while everybody hates it, it is 68% of peopleās second choice which gives it some form of democratic mandate.
Also, on a personal note, I think it is terrible that this referendum happened at all. I believe in Parliamentary democracy to my core. Parliament should have made the decision to leave or not leave. I am not qualified to make such a highly complex decision. I have read no white papers and no European legislation. Please never make me have to make such a decision again. I elect wiser people than myself to do it for me.
Reply Other polls have other results
December 8, 2018
Isn’t that an argument for ignoring the referendum? I’m not sure about that at all.
December 8, 2018
Average Voter
Don’t do yourself down.
Your opinion is as valid and important as anyone elses.
Experts are often wrong.
December 8, 2018
An Average Voter,
Yes such polls are intentionally designed to be traps – divide the vote that your editorial policy doesn’t want Of course the Remain in EU option could have offered alternatives of a. Remain in EU as is, b. Remain in EU under Cameron’s terms, c. Remain in EU and further politically integrate, d. Remain in EU and adopt the Euro … dividing votes is the way of manipulation and control.
December 8, 2018
Average voter, do you not recognise the result of the referendum where more voters elected to leave the EU than remain in it? Do you not understand why most people voted to leave? Do you not think the result of the referendum should be honoured by parliament?
I recollect polls before the referendum saying that Remain would win. They were wrong then and I’m sure are wrong now, if they say most people want to stay in the EU. This is especially true if the poll is quoted in the Economist, not known for its impartiality.
I don’t believe for one minute you are an average voter. I’m sure you are an average Remainer.
December 8, 2018
Are you ‘An average voter’ or are you really ‘Merlin Sinclair’ repeating the same message under a different name?
December 8, 2018
It might even be andy’s best friend.
December 8, 2018
Parliament gave the decision to the people. The people voted to leave. Parliament then disagreed with both the people and with their earlier decision to give the choice to the people. This gives me no confidence in this Parliament. We need more intelligent and trustworthy folk there , present company and others critical of this deal accepted. We can safely say that any MP voting for the referendum and for this deal is ignoring their mandate and should be sacked.
So how can you trust our democratic system, when so many MPs change their minds against the will of the people?
December 8, 2018
Average voter
You have fallen for the trap that Remainers have been trying to set, and are likely to try to put into play should there ever be a second referendum.
Split the leave vote, and thus Claim remain is the biggest percentage.
Perhaps you should ask a few more questions and think things through a bit more, because remain as was is not an option, as the EU is changing to further integration, and moving that way with every piece of legislation it produces.
Please read the five Presidents report which outlines the plan, it was produced by the EU Presidents before the Election and is available on line, at only 397 pages it is shorter than the dreadful so called Withdrawal Agreement.
Why not have 3 or 4 remain options, after all the original EEC vote was supposed to be a trade only arrangement.
It is now trying to morph into a European state where Nation States will no longer have a say at all.
The Five Presidents report makes very interesting reading for anyone who wants to know what the EU plan for the future 10-15 years.
December 8, 2018
An average voter? I think not.
December 8, 2018
From your logic, the last line would not be a problem.
December 8, 2018
Mr. Average Voter,
I am very happy that a Parliament finally allowed a second referendum on membership of the EU 45 years after the first.
A Parliament may be sovereign between elections but it does not have the right to give away the countryās sovereignty without the peopleās consent through a referendum, which it did not do before signing the Single European Act and the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon.
On EU membership, Parliament is clearly unrepresentative of the people. In Parliamentary constituency terms leave won 64:36 and despite this we have a remain majority in Parliament doing all it can to either hoodwink the country into a false Brexit or even blatantly trying to overturn the referendum result altogether.
December 8, 2018
AV – I think you are bogged down in numbers. And you should be more willing to trust your own better judgement, even if you get it wrong!
I voted not to be in the EEC back in 1975, because I knew what was behind it. Though our country was in a mess at the time, you don’t ditch your own loved ones just because they are following a sadly misguided path: you remember the good things and noble beginnings, for which many paid the ultimate price. And you continue to hope for a coming-to-their-senses, just as you would for a wayward son. I did not complain about the 43 years since, that I had to see my beloved country continually in thrall to.
Now that we have seen this bitter battle of the past two and a half years, I suggest you should be in no doubt what the right course is for our country. The very tactics of the opposite camp are revealing in themselves. So I urge you, value freedom – and take courage! š
December 8, 2018
āSo the alternative is easy to explain and define. It is to leave in March 2019 in accordance with the EU Withdrawal Act and in accordance with the wishes of Leave voters in the referendum.ā
Exactly. In accordance with the rules our well established democracy. The majority will triumphs. No ifs no buts. And this should have been done immediately after the Referendum…as Cameron promised.
December 8, 2018
Only 28% of those prepared to participate in the poll voted for no deal.
The poll doesn’t include the people they failed to contact, many of whom voted to leave and have no incentive to participate.
If they attempted to ask me for my views I would probably say not interested.
Those remainers smarting from the referendum are those more likely to respond.
December 8, 2018
Can we please, please leave without a deal? We have never needed one and we don’t need one now. Let’s paddle our own canoe. And one only has to venture a glance across the Channel to see what happens when people feel disenfranchised. Those protesters will be stamped on good and hard but hopefully they will help upset the apple cart and better times will be ahead for everyone, not just us.
December 9, 2018
Those protesters in France are demanding a reduction in fuel tax, nothing to do with the EU.
Which is more than can be said for our own 2011 riots when thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, saw looting, arson, and mass deployment of police, and resulted in the deaths of five people.
Attributions for the rioters’ behaviour include such social factors such as racial tension, class tension, economic decline and the unemployment that it had brought, as well as individual factors like criminality, hooliganism, the breakdown of social morality and the development of gang culture.
Nothing as bad has happened in any mainland EU country in the last decade as far as I know.
Reply The French protests are against EU austerity budgets and EU fuel price policies
December 9, 2018
margaret howard
You aren’t serious surely? Did you not look at any of the video footage of the riots in France, Belgium and to a lesser extent in Holland?
More than 1,000 of the 125,000 protesters have been arrested and there are currently 126 in hospital
Did you not read the list of demands from the Yellow Jackets?
1) Tax cuts
2) Leave the EU
Etc
Greek Riots 2008/9 Following the death of 15 year old student
Stockholm Riots On 19 May 2013
In fact there are so many riots every year in most EU countries its not worth listing them all
Any one would think people are unhappy with the European ruling establishment, austerity etc
December 9, 2018
Thank you for your post and honesty.
The Remain vote looks large because you have allowed yourself to be conned into believing that there is more than one kind of Leave, which splits the vote, and that Remain is a ‘Zero-sum game’. It is not.
Leaving, or BREXIT proper is about becoming an independent country once more. The Parliament you so love is currently little more than a talking shop. Leaving would mean it becomes the sole power in the land.
We the people had to take the decision as membership of the EU was never truly accepted.
December 8, 2018
Please by all means jump. It will be interesting to watch.
Who will you blame then ? Remainers for not believing enough that you can fly if you will it hard enough ? the government for not having prepared enough for what is a self-imposed disaster ? the EU for not giving you cake ?
My money is on anyone but yourself.
Reply Just leaving will be fine, so stop scare mongering and using silly wild language
December 9, 2018
Whatever happens we will be masters of our own house once more. That my friend is truly priceless š
December 9, 2018
Says who ? A man who has not held operational responsibility in a company for decades ?
December 9, 2018
Tabulazero
Says me who owns and operates a number of businesses some of which export to Europe and beyond, meanwhile you know what exactly about anything?
December 8, 2018
Yes leave the EU end March 2019 but do not pay a penny of the Ā£39 billion until the WA has been filtered for those aspects of it that are of mutual benefit to both the EU&UK. At such point I would only allow them a 50% down payment. This sort of gesture would cover immediate EU budgetary committments, and could be considered as one of goodwill. This should be done before end March 2019.
The second tranche of payment should only be forthcoming at the end of an agreed treaty on tariff free trade on goods and services had been signed. I would suggest that current trading arrangements continue until such treaty is finalised. Money for which the EU is desperate is the key.
/5
Under no circumstances should T May and her civil servants be allowed anywhere near such a negotiation. It must be conducted by committed Brexiteers preferably with business experience.
December 8, 2018
Dear Merlin & Average voter
Luckily we dont run the country based on spurious polls. Ive seen social media polls with 12k voters opting 93% leave. These polls are always self selecting
We had e referendum, the question was do you want to stay or do you want to leave. A majority chose leave. Therefore we leave, ONCE we’ve done that we can then beginning to talk about free trade deals etc. It is vanishingly simple
Mind if the French and Belgian riots continue along with the Greek and Italian trouble there may not be anything left to leave soon
December 9, 2018
I imagine the number of City institutions planning relocation to Paris has diminished over recent weeks.
December 8, 2018
This is all very well. But the question John Redwood has to ask himself, is this what will happen if the House of Commons votes down the deal.
It’s more likely that they’ll find some way of delaying Brexit to give time to ‘negotiate’ something even more appalling (e.g. Amber Rudd’s ‘Norway’ Plot), which get the votes of Remainers in Parliament or, cancel Brexit altogether, than it is of us Leaving with No Deal or to get a better one.
Is that what John Redwood wants his legacy to Britain to be?
It’s no good him telling us what he wants. We know that already. We need him to get for us what he can get, and if he turns down what’s on offer, tell us whether and how he can guarantee to get something better.
Reply The Withdrawal delays and locks us in for longer, it is not a Brexit option!
December 8, 2018
Dear John Redwood,
I totally agree with your sentiments: Unfortunately now that the Right Hon. Dominic Grieve (MP for Beaconsfield) has had his wicked way- by getting his motion that MPs have influence over Brexit in the event Theresa May’s “Deal” is voted down passed in the House of Commons, there is now not a Snowball in Hell’s chance of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal! Given the Remainer Majority in Parliament, even if the Conservatives are led by the Right Hon. Jacob Rees Mogg, we are unlikely to end up with leaving the EU to trade on WTO terms!
The only way that just leaving the EU to trade on WTO terms will happen is if there is a General Election with the Conservatives making this one of their main policies- and the Conservatives win a handsome Majority in Parliament with such a “Leave with No Deal” Policy in their Manifesto: It’s really the only remotely realistic way of actually making this happen!
Ian Pennell
December 8, 2018
Whatever temporary problems a so called ‘hard Brexit’ might bring, it would be walk in the park compared to the long term economic mayhem and hardship that would be brought about by 5 years of loony left Corbyn economics.
What scares me most is the young are so very idealistic and impressionable, which also means gullible and inexperienced. They are the ones who seem most convinced that a Corbyn regime would be good and a ‘hard Brexit’ is bad.
December 8, 2018
Did anyone notice I became a minister in Mrs May’s govt this am, resp for no deal planning?
Allow me to reassure voters that plans are being made to collect up the dead bodies and not allow them to be heaped in their millions, unburied, should MPs vote down Mrs May’s deal, and the UK crashes over the cliff into a WTO Brexit.
Please be reassured that plans are made for food rationing. Allowances of spam and powdered egg will be made available to replace all the fresh, wholesome, produce we now enjoy, but which will vanish from our shelves on March 30th (…should your MP be silly enough not to vote for Mrs May’s deal). so please stay calm, as many as 80% of the population may survive the first wave of the EU embargo post Brexit!
(Please ask your MP to vote for Mrs May’s terrible deal etc etc).
(I wonder whether a knighthood awaits me once we move to colonial status?!)
December 8, 2018
No NO Deal planning has been our greatest weakness in negotiations.
A deliberate signal to the EU.
December 9, 2018
Don’t be silly.
December 8, 2018
Mrs May and the cabinet won’t have an FTA they are against it, anything will do them as long as they can stay in part of the EU forever, they refuse to go against the bankers and big businesses and would rather remain in the EU with the voice of the 48% who voted remain, who now say they have won the vote.
Good old Democracy at work.
December 8, 2018
What is this money you talk about? 39 billion? Where is it? Is it lying in some offshore escrow account waiting for us? so much is talked about it I would love to know
December 8, 2018
It is indeed what the referendum vote was about. For reasons yet to be revealed, May also decided to seek a deal to remain in the customs union even though it is reported that Barnier was ready to discuss a FTA deal. Indeed it is now clear that when he said he was asking the British government to make up its mind (pre Chequers) he was evidently referring to these two choices. It is May who bounced the cabinet into her version of a deal, losing several ministers in the process.
December 8, 2018
John..truth is you don’t give two sugar’s about the wishes of the leavers, you’re all consumed only with your own determination for a headlong rush into the unknown..The Cliff..well you’ll see soon enough..’the alternative’ as you call it
December 9, 2018
This Cliff Edge narrative does rather seem like this :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20141122-the-truth-about-lemmings
As one can see, we Leavers are neither Lemmings or suicidal. And like the Cliff Edge of the Leaving the EU, the Cliff Edge of the Lemmings is nothing but a myth.
What Remainers are trying to say is, we Leavers are like Lemmings. If so, the TRUTH is we are neither suicidal or are likely to exploded.
Silly Remainers
December 8, 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/08/eu-will-negotiate-after-may-loses-commons-brexit-vote-says-prodi
“EU will negotiate if May loses Commons Brexit vote, says Prodi”
That’s fine; there’s still enough time to negotiate the technical and practical arrangements for trading on WTO terms, and for keeping the Irish border as completely open as now, and for many other technical and practical issues that need to be sorted out, if necessary with a variety of time-limited genuinely transitional provisions; and then later on when the dust has settled we can start the potentially much longer process of negotiating a new special or preferential trade deal which would be a bit better than trading on WTO terms, although not by very much:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/07/where-is-the-uks-tariff-schedule-for-march-30-2019/#comment-959636
For the UK a special UK-EU trade deal like the CETA between Canada and the EU might be worth 0.7% to 1.4% of GDP, while a deal like the proposed TTIP between the US and the EU might be worth 0.9% to 1.7% of GDP, both over the WTO baseline.
December 8, 2018
Oh, for goodness sake, let’s just leave!! Everyone is sick of the charade.
December 8, 2018
The economist, Paulo Savona, who was vetoed as Italian Finance Minister by the President when the coalition government was being formed, has described the single currency as āa German cageā….
He isn’t wrong. German economic imperialism aided and abetted by the hopeless French will lead to every growing resentment across Europe. People resent having their freedoms and liberties impinged upon by political bigots like Merkel and Macron
December 8, 2018
The problems in Paris have their roots in the lack of competition and flexibility in the French economy, both of which are compounded by the dead hand of the Single Currency.
Unemployment will never be reduced in France unless there is a determination to resolve all three of these problems.
At present, there is no interest among voters to make the French economy more competitive or flexible : quite the reverse in most cases. As for the Eurozone, I suspect that Macron is totally out of touch with voters : there is evidence of a growing resentment of Brussels and the German straightjacket that is the Euro.
December 8, 2018
Ridiculous, you are more likely to fall prey of the expansion of the purely-UK Bulk Equipment Interference Regime.
December 8, 2018
The BBC are complicit. Hiding historic German expansionist tendencies by blaming it all on some mysterious tribe called The Nazis.
My veteran grandparents only ever fought the Germans as far as they were concerned and the 1970s series World at War interviewing veterans and leading politicians of the time confirms it.
No wonder Germany reunifies while Great Britain disintegrates – all our sins are revisited over and over whilst theirs are expunged from history.
Sorry to say this over and over but there is a great injustice going on in Europe and the working/lower middle classes are awakening to it.
The haughty ruling elite will not give way and admit they have got things wrong.
December 9, 2018
Maybot
“The BBC are complicit. Hiding historic German expansionist tendencies by blaming it all on some mysterious tribe called The Nazis.”
German expansionist tendencies?
This from a country like Britain that boasted to have an empire on which the sun never set?
Reminds me of the famous quote in Blackadder Goes Forth:
“George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganiki. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front”
The best description by far.
Reply We have not sought to attack and occupy any part of Europe for the last 400 years
December 9, 2018
margaret
Yes we did have colonies in years past but we gave them their complete independence, without any financial penalty, and we continued to trade with them and support them, thus they became members of the commonwealth.
Interesting Name COMMON WEALTH.
Then we shafted them good and proper when we joined the EU because the EU put huge tariffs on their goods, so overnight they became non competitive when selling into the UK who in many cases was their largest export customer at the time.
Result our past colonies now have more independence than we do !
Compare how we behaved, to how the EU is acting now.
December 9, 2018
Alan
Without any financial penalty?
We bled them dry before we left.
December 9, 2018
Ms Howard, you obviously know nothing about German attempts to landgrab in Eastern Europe from at least the Middle Ages onwards, nor the full extent of its territories in Africa, nor about Lebensraum and the Anschluss.
December 9, 2018
sm
Landgrab in Eastern Europe?
So what do you call our ‘landgrab’ in Scotland, Ireland and before that Wales?
And then grabbing Lebensraum in a quarter of the globe?
As for Africa – have you looked at a 19th century map of that continent? Carved up between France and Britain with German hardly getting a look in.
December 9, 2018
Margaret Howard. I really wonder why you continue to live in a country you so obviously hate. It’s beyond me. Your contempt for your own country knows no bounds. Unreal.
December 8, 2018
Something like that but he seems to speak sense, and from the benefit of having dealt with the EU, civil service and Maybots. I say give him a second chance, with Raab, Boris, Redwood, IDS and Boris and Rees-Mogg on his wings.
Time to turn this ship around and get Maybots like Hunt, Grayling, Gove, Green and Rudd to walk the plank.
December 8, 2018
The latest “Silly suggestion of the Week” is that we repeat the “Once in a lifetime Referendum” in case people have changed their minds. On the same basis, perhaps General Elections should be repeated after six months” in case people have changed their minds”; or “Did not know what they were voting for”.
What we have is “Government by the media”. who appear perfectly capable of brainwashing any population to act according to the wishes and whims of the media owners. What is worse; the majority of politicians appear to take their orders from the media as well. (Our host being an outstanding exception).
I think it was a Kennedy quote;
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.”
In a world in which the media ensures that no referendum or election is accepted as final or definitive, and those who don’t like the result are encouraged to overthrow it; there will be no elections or referendums. And we are being led there like sheep.
In the New World of wonderful globalism, people will be forced to obey orders, with a boot on the face. That is the EU’s goal; hence the sneers about populism whenever the people vote in a way which the EU does not like.
Democracy is under attack. There is more at stake than Brexit.
December 8, 2018
I have noticed a new trend in the propaganda war whereon the antidemocracy media deliberately pick pejorative and emotionally laden words to label options they do not like.
As in “Crashing out of the EU” to describe a No Deal Brexit.
“Falling off the Cliff Edge.” All deliberately disaster laden.
Please play the same game, and choose words deliberately.
“Anti democracy” is an accurate label for those who wish to ignore the Referendum result.
“Permanent imprisonment without a voice”, accurately describes May’s deal.
“Unconditional Surrender to a Foreign Government”.
“Locked up with our hands tied behind our back”.
Our media is the enemy of freedom and we have to oppose them intelligently.
Every single thing that we can do to change the narrative will help.
December 8, 2018
No deal. .still no details of how we would certify aviation parts, veterinary checks,euratom, eu type approval of vehicles ..handle the multi layer Eu food safety standards etc etc. I give up!
December 9, 2018
WTO terms. Mutual recognition of acceptable standards until we find it necessary to diverge. Not difficult unless you are a remainer.
December 9, 2018
Ken, I am sorry to say you will waiting until hell freezes over before you get any detail from the Brexiteers. Here are some things we don’t have to worry about as members of the EU, but which will hit our economy very hard once we leave- phytosanitary inspections, border inspection posts, sharing of WTO quotas, passporting of financial services, reciprocal health care rights, hauliers’ permits. I could go on. Mention any of those issues to people like John Redwood and watch as their jaw goes slack, before they start drooling about taking back control. Detail? Forget it. the Brexiters don’t do detail
Reply We have dealt with all these issues many times
December 9, 2018
Amber
Or you could just read the posts on this blog that debunks all your drivel
December 8, 2018
Yes of course we must simply leave, and Lord Howard is quite right to point out that what we need to negotiate now with the EU is MRAs and our exit on 29/03/19 with no Withdrawal Agreement.
It is rather amusing to see how the various shades of Remainer cabinet ministers and MPs are now fighting like ferrets in a sack over which kind of pretend-we’re-leaving-but-remain option they think they can slip past the people. All of them ignore the obvious – that
If we were even interested in addressing their specious pseudo-arguments, we’d probably ask them which kind of Remain do they actually envisage the EU granting? The one where the UK’s rebate is entirely lost and it pays increasing amounts for the accession of ever-poorer Balkan and North African countries? Where the British Army ceases to exist? Where the UK is forced to take ‘refugees’ Germany doesn’t want? Where there is no more national veto in the EU Council? Where the UK joins the euro?
Because Brussels is definitely planning to foist all that on the UK should it be stupid enough to withdraw Art. 50 and ‘remain’. And there will be no negotiations on these matters: Brussels will say ‘take it or leave it’.
A ‘Remain’ strategy that will benefit only the EU, and possibly the convenience of euroland ex-pats, who neither vote nor pay taxes in the UK.
If MPs are terminally stupid enough to engineer such an outcome, they will not be safe from public anger.
December 8, 2018
“All of them ignore the obvious ā that we have voted to withdraw from the EU.”
December 9, 2018
Mrs May went to the country in June 2017 with a manifesto offering the hard Brexit you seek Mr Redwood.
It was rejected by 60% of voters. You have no mandate for it.
Your Brexit is dying. It is an embarrassing, predictable death – humiliating our country in the process. It is just a matter of time until we kill it off for good.
Reply 82% voted for Con/Lab/DUP who all recommended leaving!
December 9, 2018
More nonsense from you Andy
The manifesto only spoke of leaving the EU and securing the best deal for the UK
Stop making things up.
December 9, 2018
Assuming May’s instrument of surrender is rejected on Tuesday, isn’t the most practical option to extend our EU membership until 2020 and forget about the transition mess? We would either agree future terms of trade by then or default to WTO terms, and everybody would have time to plan for the worst case which seems to be a constant complaint.
Plus there is a GE in 2020 which would focus the minds of negotiators. Remoaners would not give up but they will just morph into Rejoiners so we will have to keep the argument going.
When we joined the EEC there was a five year transition for reduction of tariffs so that any closures of redundant plants etc could be handled smoothly. The two years allowed in the Lisbon treaty is just too short especially when we end up being railroaded into a rotten deal.
December 9, 2018
After losing the vote, May will go to Brussels, to seek other ways to sabotage our exit and she will likely be told that they will extend the negotiation period …. I would love it if the following played out:
– May…. “No Thanks, we have to settle it Now”
– EU…. “In that case you will leave with no deal – Goodbye”
One can dream, that just once one of our PM’s could show some British spirit in the face of the hatred we get from the EU.